ECE 110/120 Honors Lab Section : Dancing Fingers

Haoyu Wang ECE110 haoyuw7

Shunyue Yuan ECE110

A. Introduction

1. Statement of purpose
   
   Our purpose is to design a portable musical instrument. We want users to carry music with them everywhere. With the help of gloves and pressure sensors, we will use a computer to play a variety of notes not only based on users’ finger motions but also in accordance with where they move their finger, which we call it ''dancing fingers''. 
   
   
2. Background research
   
   It is very difficult for people to bring a piano with them due to the extreme clumpy bodies. Even electronic pianos are not really portable because of their size. One of the reasons why they are so large is that one keyboard only represents a note, which requires 88 piano keys to stand for all 88 notes and inevitably makes the piano cumbersome. In our project, we are trying to simplify the structure for piano by utilizing a sensor. 

B. Design details

1. Block Diagram / Flow Chart
   
   
2. System Overview
   The users have to put on a glove and put down their fingers on a certain pad on the table.  Both capacitive touch sensors on the pad and the glove will send a signal to Arduino, which will create a combination and the Arduino will make a note according to the signals by sending another signal to the speaker. The computer may also light the LEDs to represent which note is being played, thus enabling the users to know the tone.

C. Parts

1. Arduino
2. Capacitive touch sensors (pressure sensors)
3. Glove
4. Speaker
5. LEDs
   
   

D. Possible Challenges

• limited online information for related research.
• how to manage sounds with different pitches
• how to display a piece of fluent music 

E. Reference

How to make music with an Arduino [Online] Available: https://create.arduino.cc/projecthub/Code_and_Make/how-to-make-music-with-an-arduino-09ff1e

Piano TouchSense Glove, hiac, [Online] Available: https://www.instructables.com/id/Piano-TouchSense-Glove/